“From then on, I was terrified that I or one of my parents were going to die. My mother worried me the most. She was the force around which our world turned. Unlike our father, who spent his life in the clouds, my mother was propelled through the universe by the brute force of reason. She was the judge in all of our arguments. One disapproving word from her was enough to send us off to hide in a corner, where we would cry and fantasize our own martyrdrom. And yet. One kiss could restore us to princedom. Without her, our lives would dissolve into chaos.”

American author

Nicole Krauss is an American novelist known for fiction that has reached a wide international readership. She is best known for her four novels, Man Walks into a Room (2002), The History of Love (2005), Great House (2010) and Forest Dark (2017). Her work has been translated into 35 languages. Krauss has also had fiction published in The New Yorker, Harper's, and Esquire. She was included in Granta's Best American Novelists Under 40, and her stories have appeared in several editions of The Best American Short Stories, including 2003, 2008, 2019 and 2021.